Word: adenovirus
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...early gene-therapy trial for cystic fibrosis, inflammation caused by the viral carrier, an altered adenovirus, was so severe that the FDA ordered a halt to the effort, casting a pall over all the other trials--and the field in general. More problems plagued the researchers. In many cases the implanted genes failed to "turn on," or express themselves, and were unable to command the cells to produce the protein they were supposed to provide. Some operated for a while and then inexplicably shut down...
Many other vectors are now being tested. Dr. Ronald Crystal of New York Hospital-Cornell Medical Center was jogging one day when he had the inspired notion of delivering genes to the lungs of cystic fibrosis patients using the adenovirus that causes the common cold. "This is a virus that has taken millions of years to evolve to do what it does -- get into the lung," says Crystal, who plans to begin a new set of trials with the virus in the next month or so. One of his challenges is to render the adenovirus harmless and keep it from...
Last week Government doctors announced that they had turned the trick with a coated capsule that bypasses the respiratory system and releases a dried and purified version of the live virus in the intestine, where it multiplies and starts antibody production. The virus, called adenovirus Type 4, causes a severe, grippe-like illness, and sometimes viral pneumonia, especially among raw recruits in military camps...
Despite overoptimistic claims, the new vaccine has no immediate bearing on the common cold, which is caused by a multitude of viruses that are only distantly, if at all, related to adenovirus 4. What is hopeful, for possible vaccines against many other virus diseases, is the ingenious technique of roundabout vaccination...
...near-final step in the same direction was reported by Baylor University's Dr. John J. Trentin, who grew highly malignant tumors in hamsters injected with adenovirus 12, which hitherto had been known to cause disease (a feverish cold, or "grippe" ) only in humans. Doubters suggested that Dr. Trentin's adenovirus might have been contaminated with SV 40. To make sure, other laboratories will repeat the Baylor experiments...